Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild explores how Thoreau crafted a life open to "the Wild," a term that marks the startling element of foreignness in every object of experience, however familiar. Thoreau's encounters with nature, Bennett argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity, and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoreau and our contemporaries: Foucault on identity and power, Haraway on the nature/culture of division, Hollywood celebrities on the Walden Woods Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities on politics and art, and Kafka on the question of political idealism. The pertinence to the late 20th century of Thoreau's pursuit of independent judgment, ecological foresight, and moral nobility becomes apparent through these engagements.

What is freedom? In this study, Thomas Dumm challenges the conventions that have governed discussions and debates concerning modern freedom by bringing the work of Michel Foucault into dialogue with contemporary liberal thought. While Foucault has been widely understood to have characterized the modern era as being opposed to the realization of freedom, Dumm shows how this characterization conflates FoucaultOs genealogy of discipline with his overall view of the practices of being free. Dumm demonstrates how FoucaultOs critical genealogy does not shrink from understanding the ways in which modern subjects are constrained and shaped by forces greater than themselves, but how it instead works through these constraints to provide, not simply a vision of liberation, but a joyous wisdom concerned with showing us, in his words, that we Oare much freer than we feel.O Both as an introduction to Foucault and as an intervention in liberal theory, Michel Foucault and the Politics of Freedom is bound to change how we think about the limits and possibilities of freedom in late modernity.

Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics examines the philosophy of Burke in view of its contribution to our understanding of modernity. Stephen K. White argues that Burke shows us how modernity engenders an implicit forgetfulness of human finitude. White illustrates this theme by showing how Burke's political thought, his judgment of the 'modern system of morality and policy, ' and its taste for a 'false sublime' are structured by his aesthetics

The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt rereads Arendt's political philosophy in light of newly gained insights into the historico-cultural background of her work. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Dialogues with Contemporary Political Theorists consists of a series of dialogues with pre-eminent contemporary political theorists that are undertaken by political theorists, who are currently interested in and engaged by their work. The dialogues deal with the influences upon and significant works of these major theorists as well as their views on the current state of political theory and the significant issues of contemporary politics. The political theorists who are the focus of these dialogues represent all major aspects of contemporary political theory, and are drawn from several areas of the globe. What they have in common and reveal in these interviews are fascinating backgrounds and influences and highly individual perspectives on theory and politics. The upshot is a multi-faceted introduction to political theory today.

In this important new book, Diana Coole shows how existential phenomenology illuminates and enlivens our understanding of politics. Merleau-Pontys focus on embodied experience allows us to approach political life in a manner that is both critical and engaged. With breadth of vision and penetrating insight, Coole demonstrates that political questions were always central to Merleau-Pontys philosophical project. Her examination of his complete body of work presents us with a rigorous philosophy that maintains our capacities for agency despite moving beyond a philosophy of the subject.